Neil Kinnock appeared on both Dispatches and Panorama this evening bemoaning the presence of socialists in the Labour Party. Neither programme succeeded in finding anything sinister happening, but they did succeed in playing a great deal of sinister music. This must have been a great boost to the sinister music writing industry, for which we should be grateful. I think they have definitively proved that some people are left wing, and would like to have left wing MPs.
But seeing Kinnock reminded me of another bit of TV I saw today, a heartbreaking advert for Save the Children featuring a dying little baby, unable to ask for help. The advert urged you to give just £2 a month to help save her.
If 11,000 people responded with £2 a month, that would not save the little baby, but it would exactly pay the £264,000 per year salary of Neil Kinnock’s daughter-in-law Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Chief Executive of Save the Children and wife of MP Stephen Kinnock. Indeed if 20,000 people gave £2 per month, that would probably cover Mrs Stephen Kinnock’s salary, her other employment costs and the money paid to Sky for the advert. When you toss in Stephen’s salary and expenses, the Stephen Kinnock household are bringing in just shy of a cool half a million pounds a year from public service and charity work.
The salary of Ms Thorning-Schmidt is approximately twice that of her predecessor, Justin Forsyth, who was on an already unconscionable £140,000. I exposed their massive salaries at the time the Save the Children awarded a “Global Legacy” award to Tony Blair. Indeed to meet the salaries and other employment costs of just the top executives at Save the Children would take 80,000 people paying £2 a month. They would be funding executives with an average salary of over £140,000. For those in work paying the £2 a month, the average UK salary is £26,000 a year, and many retired and unemployed people scrimp to find money to give to try to help the needy.
The use of charities as a massive cash cow for the political classes is a real concern. David Miliband is on over 300,000 for heading the International Rescue Committee. When I listed the Save the Children executives, they included Brendan Cox, on over £100,000. He was the husband of Jo Cox, the murdered Labour MP. Brendan Cox and Justin Forsyth were both advisers to Gordon Brown and both moved to Save the Children when they lost their jobs on Brown losing power, sliding in on 6 figure salaries. Jo Cox was an adviser to Glenys Kinnock and left that job to be an executive at Oxfam before she too worked as a highly paid Save the Children executive.
Brendan Cox left Save the Children due to allegations from several women that he sexually harassed female staff and volunteers. Justin Forsyth left at the same time amid allegations he had not effectively acted to have his friend Cox investigated. This has not stopped Forsyth from now popping up as Deputy Chief Executive of UNICEF. Misery for some is a goldmine for others.
Who needs the Flying Scotsman…. When We have the Harry potter train.. ain’t read the book,and don’t like the Author…But – see Scotland’s most Beautiful train Journey ( that Obviously means the World’s ) –
http://www.seat61.com/WestHighlandLine.htm#.V-g1fPArK1s
Re Corbyn.. great reporting from a REAL journalist 🙂
Unelectable Corbyn Elected Again! –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8os-nKuoM3o
Mr Goss
“Well, it would be a futile bet. You would renege on the bet and retain your anonimity as an unmitigated bigot and shit-stirrer. Nobody with any sense would trust or entertain you. Your continual stupidity lies in repeatedly thinking they would.”
This is untrue, John. I always have and always will honour any bet taken against me. If you want to see a man who will not honour his bets then you will look no further than Craig. I had a straight £100 bet with him that the Yes campaign would lose the Scottish independence referendum. He lost and he still hasn’t paid up. The winnings were due to be received by Medical Aid for Palestinians. Make of that what you will.
All winnings will be paid. We will find a way to do this through the moderators, or per Resident Dissident’s suggestion earlier. I couldn’t show my face on this blog again if I refused to pay up.
I note that to date still no one has taken me up on any bet against Jeremy winning the next GE. Not even £1. I maintain that none of you has any real faith in him. It just makes you feel good that he’s there and that’s as far as your hope or expectations go. I maintain that all the claims here of Jeremy storming the next election are disingenuous. He hasn’t a hope and you all know it.
Now I know you can get better odds with the bookies. But the point about this bet is that you get to see me humiliated. I’ll be forced to eat my words, as Mary “Sharp Ears” predicted earlier. Anon1 sent packing with his tail between his legs as socialism sweeps the UK. What could be more sweet?
So I am offering any bets from £1 to £1,000, up to the value of £1,000, that Corbyn will lose the next GE should he stand as Labour leader.
So who’s first?
If Mr Goss or others don’t trust you they could of course go to the bookies and get 4-1 and just post up their betting slips as signs of their faith. The honest truth is that getting 50 hard left MPs elected would be beyond their wildest dreams – UKIP would of course be in seventh heaven with just 10.
If you want to get people to bet you will have to offer odds. If I can get 5/1 against from a bookie why would I put any money at evens with you.
Besides which there is the matter of ‘nobbling’: as a self anointed Blairite you will undoubtedly be aware that your primary task for the next few months is to do all you can to handicap Corbyn. That is what you have been doing for the past year and you seem to be acting in cahoots with Foreign Embassies and the British branches of their security services- as can be gathered from the astonishing speed with which their agents in the Labour Party culled half the Members from the electorate and pretty well as many registered supporters from the vote.
In other words the fix is in, so you are going to have to offer very attractive odds to tempt us from diverting donations to the socialist cause to playing games with cuckoos who have been fouling Labour’s nest for many years. At least Baron bloody Bill Rodgers had the decency to leave the party.
Yep get your excuses in now – blame it on the Blairites, the media, the Tibetans, ISIS, the security etc etc etc and most of all the good old USA – nothing of course to do with your rubbish ideology that convinces no one and keeps failing to turn out as good old Karl predicted.
I used to find lectures on what does and doesn’t constitute democracy from yourself rather sickening – I’m afraid now hey just make me laugh.
Get those excuses in early!
No money in my account.
There’s a story of the bricklayer who said he would pay his boss £50 if he would place his testicles on a trowel. After obliging his boss asked him what he got out of the deal. He said “I bet all the blokes on the building site I’d have the boss’s bollocks on a trowel by lunchtime.”
So what odds are you offering?
Goss
You said Jeremy would walk it. Why do you want outside odds now?
You’re lucky I didn’t offer you 1/10 on a Jeremy victory based on your confidence.
You’re getting good odds as Jeremy is a dead cert.
Grow-up, you little twat.
Rob, it’s the nearest these people have come to a reasonable argument in 18 months. The pity is that they weren’t offering bets last year or even last month. They’ve been shocked into “I may be a warmonger, I may treatr the BBC and The Guardian as gospel, I may be in favour of every attack on the poor every mounted, I may believe everything I’m told about Jeremy Corbyn-by journalists and politicos who would treat me with complete contempt if I ever ran across them….” mode and are reduced to saying “Betcha I’m right. ”
Damon Runyan said never bet more than 6/4 against any man. And he knew boxing.
Of course blowing up aid convoys is the sign of a peacemaker – is there any shit coming out of Putin and his KGB loving predecessors back to 1917 that you haven’t fallen for?
You read too much shit from MSM. It was a US (you know those who funded, trained and equipped ISIS to overthrow Assad) predator drone which was involved in the attack on the Syrian aid convoy. Russia has presented its evidence and is calling for an impartial investigation.
https://www.rt.com/news/360165-us-drone-syria-russia/
As Mark Golding and others have pointed out the White Helmets are not responders but trained private mercenaries thought to be supplying coordinates for the drone strikes. Your love for the USA and hatred of Russia (Putin in particular) is evident from your continual Russia-bashing to your acceptance of the official story regarding 9/11.
@ John Goss and all:
Syria is an extremely important subject, but why not comment on the still-active Syria/Barre-bomb thread?
‘Syria: White Helmets Staged ‘Russian Bombing’ Scene Near Aleppo, Lapped-up by Mainstream Media’:
SEPTEMBER 24, 2016 BY 21WIRE 15 COMMENTS
http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/09/24/syria-white-helmets-staged-russi an-bombing-scene-near-aleppo-lapped-up-by-mainstream-media/
I’m putting this up on there as well, but have put it here to remind folk that the other thread is still active.
I’ve been offering this bet ever since Jeremy became leader. Socialism is a dead cause in the UK.
Socialism dead? Not at all!
When the banks bent belly-up, they discovered socialism. When villages started drowning in floods last year, it was all about socialism with them. The railway companies just _loves_ them some socialism when they need public money to satisfy their shareholders.
No, Anon1 – socialism for the rich is just fine, alive and well, always has been.
Now Britain is firmly established on the road to socialism, and given France seems to have missed that turning as your previous predictions of revolution have turned to dust when might we be expecting your return. I’m sure we can get Bevin to name Charing Cross as Finland Station in your honour.
No bets placed. My account is still empty.
Just £1 minimum bet. Can none of you manage it? You all say Jeremy will walk the next GE.
Don’t you need some kind of licence to take up bookmaking? Especially with this being the web and some readers having a record of calling the cops.
Why don’t you offer the same, or better, odds as the Bookies? After all, if you are so very sure, JC is unelectable, why not corner the market, and instead of offering evens, beat the bookie’s 5-1 and offer 50-1?
Matches your head!
“Well, it would be a futile bet. You would renege on the bet and retain your anonimity”
Anon1 has the audacity to call Mr Goss of anonymity? Well don’t that just beat all? PMSL
Swiss vote massively in favour of a massive increase in secret surveillance & collaboration with the 18 us intelligence agencies and their tier one, two & tier three partner countries.
“With one eye laughing and one eye crying, said the opposition , well, at least we had a debate & a vote – unlike many other countries”
Around 20 jobs will be created & many servers bought ( pro tip: they’ve probably already been doing the monitoring & mixing for ages, most countries are just seemingly legitimising past activities )
http://www.tdg.ch/articles
“Plébiscite pour des pouvoirs renforcés des services secrets”
Do you like living in Switzerland, YKMN? It’s a nice country, isn’t it? Allen Dulles was stationed there during the war. A good guy.
I think the BBC is speaking in a new language, one that is not real.
They think Syria is in Europe, they do not think Syria is in Asia.
What can the BBC hope to gain by this disinformation?
“The Al-Nusra Front in Aleppo keeps receiving tanks and heavy weapons shipped by their Western backers as the US turns a blind eye, Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, told the Security Council. He added that securing peace “is almost an impossible task now.”
Al-Nusra Front is currently the most powerful group fighting against the government in Aleppo, with 2,000 out of 3,500 militants in the city the group’s members.
“They are armed by tanks, APCs, field artillery, multiple rocket launchers… dozens and dozens of units, including heavy weaponry… Of course, they couldn’t have made this equipment themselves. All of this has been received by them and is still being shipped to them by generous Western backers, with the US, presumably, turning a blind eye,” Churkin said.
According to the Russian envoy, the Al-Nusra Front militants use the civilian population of Aleppo as human shields while indiscriminately attacking residential areas in the city controlled by the Syrian government.
“Over 200,000 residents of Aleppo are hostages of the Al-Nusra Front and groups allied with it,” Churkin said.
The terrorists are the main reason why attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to Aleppo have failed, contradicting accusations by the US, which blames Russia and Damascus, he said.”
Russia today
Why don’t the Americans tell the world, what they are really after in Syria?
An attempt at confusion with regard the geographic definition of Europe is probably designed to assist the anarchists with their ongoing efforts to destabilize Europe through uncontrolled and uncounted migration. Free movement within Europe has not done the job and so free movement from outside Europe is now being enlisted to the cause
A frequent anarchist commentator here was recently floating the idea that Israel was part of Europe.
The only people who are trying to destabilise Europe and the US are political extremists of every stripe. Which is your stripe, “Loony”?
_____________________
BTW, do you believe the Caucasus (or “caucuses” as you once hilariously put it) are part of Europe?
Caucasian
white-skinned; of European origin.
I forget who it was but I’m pretty certain that someone was wondering how there could possibly be any objection to Israel taking part in the Eurovision Song Contest, joining NATO, entering the EU and other trivial stuff of that kind.
Perhaps this story of Franklin Lamb’s is some sort of explanation:
“The intense summer heat was gone and the evening was breezy and cool that fateful Thursday evening, September 15, 1982, according to survivors of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre who, 34 years later, still remember and recount many details of the slaughter that was soon to follow.
“It was following the 9/14/1982 assassination of President-elect Bachir Gemayel, leader of the Lebanese Forces militia and senior Kataeb Party official, that Israeli forces closed in with their tanks and blockaded the Shatila refugee camp and the adjacent Sabra neighborhood. By prearrangement with their Christian phalange allies, the Israeli invaders led the Kataeb affiliated Phalange militia from Beirut airport north two miles to inside the camp, in violation of their agreement with the US Reagan administration.
“The militia’s intent was to slaughter Palestinians but anyone they encountered including some Lebanese among others, became targets. What followed were nearly three days of slaughter , rape and dismemberment of the civilian population, men, women and children as the Christian militia penetrated the camp and conducted a frenzied, partly drug fueled, killing spree slaughtering an estimated 1, 800 to 3,500. The carnage was aided by Israeli forces that surrounded Shatila, lighted the night sky with flares turning the night into day, provided heavy equipment to bury and hide bodies, communicated with the Phalange terrorists and blocked camp residents from fleeing Shatila during the carnage while ushering reinforcement killer militia inside.
“Neither the Israeli organizers-facilitators nor their Lebanese designates were ever held accountable. The latter’s amnesty was assured by the political and moral corruption among the increasingly polarized sects in Lebanon. This fact transformed the killers and ‘warlords’ into “political lords”, several of whom still hold political “leadership” positions with a couple vying to be Lebanon’s next President….”
The rest of the piece is in Counterpunch.
So, it’s Monday. And already we’ve had: anti-semitism claims, Chukka leaking that he’ll challenge, and Eagle and Benn ‘speaking out’ against the leader. I’ve all but given up on the Parliamentary Labour Party. It’s totally infested with US spies, and donor lackey’s, and amoral behavior is now just par for the course. This Jezza thing is quite funny, I do love seeing Blair-ites upset, but it’s clear that there will never be compromise, or any accommodation at all whilst Jezza is in charge. It’s just sad really.
I have no solutions. I think the PLP should just let Jezza get on with it. If he loses an election heavily, he’ll probably resign anyway. The fact that they won’t give him a minutes peace is instructive: I strongly suspect their ‘donors’ are telling them in no uncertain terms that money will dry up, if Jezza is not dealt with immediately. I also strongly suspect young Benn is on the naughty step for something or other, and a damaging matter is being held back, for now …
Chukka Umbumba is obviously a Washington stooge,probably a beneficiary of the BAP programme (British American Project)
Hillary Benn is a disgrace to his fathers name, He is the one that gave the John Bull speech in favour for Britain to go to war in Syria. This has resulted in the RAF being complicit in the deaths of over 60 soldiers at Deir Ezzor.
Hillary Benn is a war criminal, and can be added to Tony Blair (Iraq), David Cameron (Libya and Syria)
The Americans have a term for such armchair warriors, Chickenhawks, beating the drum for war ,while far away from the horrific realities of death and destruction.
The UK , US and other NATO forces have invaded the Sovereign nation of Syria, contrary to International Law, going back to Treaty of Westphalia.
Russia is the only country invited to Syria, to help defend it against an illegal invasion, by a coalition of the criminal and immoral.
It’s going to be a war of attrition, now the attempts at an electoral coup have failed. The antisemitism smear may well prove to be an own-goal for the Blairites, not to say the Jewish community, which really doesn’t need its existence highlighted in the context of incessant carping and complaint. Maybe the NEC should appoint the shadow cabinet?
There was an interesting comment from ChunkyMark the Taxi Driver who said Owen Smith didn’t come second he came third. The purged came second.
John Kiriakou on Radio NZ
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201817412
24 September 2016
John Kiriakou: torture and whistleblowing
John Kiriakou is a former CIA officer who in 2002 led the team that located Abu Zubaydah, alleged to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda.
John Kiriakou on why he spoke out about the CIA’s use of torture duration 23′ :29″
After a news interview in 2007, in which he confirmed that Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times, describing it as torture, Kiriakou was arrested, tried and sentenced to a 30-month prison term for revealing classified information.
He is now a best-selling author and writes for Reader Supported News. In May he received the 2016 Blueprint International Whistleblowing Prize, and this weekend, he will receive the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence.
He told RNZ that the US lost its way after the 9/11 attacks and that the Patriot Act has undermined the lawful foundations of the nation. Torture is indefensible and ineffective he says.
“Not just because we’re supposed to be a beacon of human rights and of civil liberties, but because if somebody is undergoing torture he is going to offer up any information he thinks the torturer wants to hear.
“The truth is going to be buried in there, but he is going to say so much it will take weeks, months maybe even years to pore through the data. From a practical standpoint it simply doesn’t work and from a moral and ethical standpoint it’s just simply wrong.”
Waterboarding, he says, was always illegal in the US.
“In 1946 the US executed a Japanese soldier who had waterboarded American soldiers, and in 1968 the American government arrested, charged and convicted an American soldier who had waterboarded a North Vietnamese soldier and sentenced him to 20 years in prison – the law never changed.”
He asks why it was illegal then and not in 2002?
So why did he speak out after years of serving in the CIA?
“I left the CIA in 2004 and never said a word until Sept 2007, but in the interim Amnesty International was writing about waterboarding and torture, Human Rights Watch was writing about it, the International Committee of the Red Cross was writing about it, so when Brian Ross of ABC news finally approached me in the days before the interview I thought a lot about it and I decided that no matter what he asked me I was going to tell the truth and just let the chips fall.”
He says he struggled with his conscience at this time.
“It wasn’t just Abu Zubaydah it was dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other prisoners. Nobody was willing to discuss the end, what was the endgame in all of this? Are we going to torture them until we came to the conclusion they didn’t have anything else and then what? Kill them? Disappear them?
“We already had a system of secret prisons around the world something like the gulag system so what was the endgame? To finally silence people?”
He says Zubaydah, when he was finally handed to the CIA after being conventionally interrogated by the FBI, was stuck in a never ending cycle of torture.
As well as the waterboarding, he was beaten and put him in a dog cage for weeks at a time.
“He had an irrational fear of insects, so they would dump cockroaches into the dog cage just to make him crazy. He was subjected to sleep deprivation, he was starved, he was subject to something called the cold cell.
“He was stripped naked, he was chained to an eye bolt in the ceiling, his cell was chilled to 50 degrees Fahrenheit and every hour a CIA officer would go into the cell and throw a bucket of ice water on him. That technique has killed people and Abu Zubaydah went through all of it, every one of the techniques that were authorised by President Bush.”
Kiriakou had a glittering career at the CIA and says while many of his colleagues supported his decision to speak out, his problem is with the organisation’s leadership.
“The leadership of the CIA was largely made up of sociopaths, who believed they were the patriots, but were people no better than common murderers in my view. We’ve killed people during interrogations a number of times, no one was ever brought to justice for those killings.
“And what about the drone wars? How many schools, hospitals and weddings have to accidentally be bombed before we apologise and re-evaluate this programme?”
He says the Republican Party does not have a monopoly on patriotism.
“I consider myself to be a liberal and a progressive and as patriotic as anyone else in the CIA, at the same time we’re a nation of laws, governed by an iron clad constitution, and if we intend to remain a country of laws we have to follow those laws – whether we like them or not, and we didn’t after 9/11.’
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/201817412/john-kiriakou-torture-and-whistleblowing
Great piece by Michael Deacon in the Telegraph:
What would George Orwell think of Jeremy Corbyn?
“Socialism is such elementary common sense,” wrote Orwell, “that I am sometimes amazed that it has not established itself already.” The working class, he said, “ought to be flocking” to the socialist cause. And yet, to Orwell’s frustration, they weren’t. Why not?
One major reason, he argued, was that the working class were being “driven away” by a certain type of socialist – a type they believed to be utterly out of touch with their lives, views and interests. Orwell agreed. This type of socialist, he complained bitterly, was “bearded”, “vegetarian”, “teetotal”, “prim”, “middle-class”, “a crank” and “a pacifist”.
I’m sure that description reminds me of someone. But for the life of me I can’t think who.
__________________
😀
Splendid post, Anon!.
Explains why the far-lefters on here refer to Orwell so infrequently ?
His observations on the use of language by the far-lefters are also moist instructive.
“His observations on the use of language by the far-lefters are also moist instructive.”
So now we know about Habba’s “moist” interests…
He just uses one hand to type when Anon really excites him, I’ve noticed it before.
Better the occasional typo, Bev, than a constant stream of garbage which isn’t even original, surely?
The hard left hated Orwell when he was alive and often tried to stop his work being published. Jeremy Corbyn has precious little to say about Orwell.
The linked essay is of relevance
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/01/why-are-so-many-left-embarrassed-patriotism
Orwell was wrong, at least in today’s terms. What drives people away from socialism is the massive weight of propaganda deployed against it by factional interests the basis of whose existence is inequality and waste. And the weight placed by this on the otherness of some of socialism’s advocates, as a means of alienation. Orwell’s analysis should be even less appealing today, now that ripped jeans and stubble are fashion items, vegetarianism is mainstream among the urban chattering classes, and considering that our Trotskyite PM, Teresa May is the living exemplar of prim middleclassness. No cigar.
@Anon1, you seem to be mistaking a blog whose purpose the Host has stated several times, it to facilitate the exchange of ideas & to be a space for critical thinking, as some sort of online Bookie !
It self-evident that you & your other two or three fellow-minded regular posters here, are not very good at engaging in rational debate, so it’s no surprise that you resort to the crudeness of boastful dares as a substitute, but here’s another chance to see in you can articulate any sort of sensible argumentation:
I think you are wrong to be so certain that Labour under Corbyn will lose a GE, because of the following;
Corbyn like no other politician in recent times has been able to attract unprecedented mass popular support, and not just from traditional Labour supporters as a YouGov Poll has just revealed that in the Leadership Election Corbyn won people who didn’t vote Labour in 2015 by a margin of 57%’
Theresa May also believes that Labour will win under Corbyn, otherwise she would call for an immediate GE if she really thought that he is unelectable.
Theresa May is a Turkey, a real liability to the Tories, hopelessly out of her depth & out-classed by JC on every level; if she is still Leader when the GE is called, then the scale of the Labour victory will be unprecedented.
So these are some of the arguments that I think support my POV, are you able to articulate reasoned refutations or counter argumentation, or will you go back to the intellectual heights of offering bets again ?! 😀
Well, Macks, it seems to me, on careful reading, that most of your “arguments” are in fact no such thing; they are mere assertions.
Nothing wrong with assertions, of course, but you shouldn’t call them “arguments”, a word which demands the marshalling of facts and logic in a persuasive manner.
Gamma double minus, I’m afraid.
LOL@HabbaClown, if that’s your conclusion even after “careful reading”, you are beyond parady ! 😀
(The ony people your nonsense obfuscations impress are the simple-minded like-minded, everybody see through you for the conniving clown that you are.)
“beyond parady”, Macks?
Careful – Alan and Bev might accuse you of typing with one hand while playing with yourself with the other! 🙂
You vile misogynist sick fuck, you ought to be barred from any civilised fora!!!!!!!
Why on Earth Craig puts up with a specimen likes of you crawling from that little shitty strip of land is a mystery to the rest of the civilised world?
@fedup, don’t let the Obnoxious Obsessive annoy you, annoying people is one of the main reasons why he posts here; and as for him being a Hasbara shill, I doubt it as he is quite pig ignorant about the I/P conflict, all his “knowledge” is sourced on the fly, mostly from Wiki, (remember how excited he got when he eventually found out that the Zionist term for the West Bank is Judea and Samaria, he couldn’t stop using it for days ! 😀 )
I suspect the truth is actually quite sad really, a lonely old nobody who feels cheated in life because he thinks he is smart enough to have been somebody, but as is plainly obvious here, his delusion of “intellectual firepower” is in fact a very damp squib indeed.
Since we can’t be rid of this pest, let’s at least enjoy the laughs he inadvertently delivers, as in a way we are quite lucky really for entertainment, as we have not just one resident Clown, nor a Comedy Double Act, nor even Three Stooges, but rather Four Brainless Horsemen, as Habba-Clown, RD, Anon1 & Kempe pass around to each other, a handful of half-dead brain-cells ! 😀
To be fair he is right about assertions. And as he constantly uses them, choosing them above evidence based arguments he is somewhat of an expert…
You can only “be fair” to the well meaning, which rules out the Habba-Clown every time he posts; as it will be clear to those with a fully functioning brain, my argument is that Labour under JC would the next GE, and I listed some of my reasoning, or “assertions” if you to play pedantic silly buggers.
Macks
“.. my argument is that Labour under JC would [ sic – “win” perhaps? One hand typing again? Tu tut ] the next GE,..etc..”
___________________
That is not an argument, Macks, it is an assertion supported not by “reasoning” as you go on to claim but merely by a jumble of further assertions.
You must learn to use words properly if you aspire to be taken even half-seriously on this blog. And understand that you can only support an assertion through facts, not further assertions.
@Habba-Clown, You can pretend that you don’t understand English as commonly used in the real world, but rest assured most can see a Troll plying his trade every single time you post.
How’s Diane?
Budapest, Hungary bombing: “Someone wanted to murder our officers in terror attack”
say police.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/714102/Massive-explosion-rocks-Hungarian-capital-Budapest-multiple-casualties-reported
As officers investigating a massive explosion, which seriously injured two officers in the capital, found a home-made nail bomb,
previously described as “probably a gas explosion”
In a press conference, Hungarian police said they are working on SEVEN possible theories about the incident.
The explosion shattered glass windows and caused panic in the surrounding streets, with scores of emergency vehicles rushing towards loud blast, which witnesses initially believed to be triggered by a gas leak.
Well, after several gas explosions in Northern Europe over the last year, finally a country is not taking it as just a gas explosion, they are looking into seven possible theories, good for the Hungarians, often better to have an open mind on explosions.
In a display of disgust towards the Assad regime, Matthew Rycroft, the British ambassador to the UN, walked out of a specially convened Security Council meeting when the Syrian ambassador rose to speak.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/britain-accuses-putin-of-war-crimes-in-syria-at-bitter-un-meeting/ar-BBwCTu3?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=UE01DHP
We walked out of the EU and we have now walked out of Truth. Not much left on our raft. But think of the CONTROL.
Surely his job description would have required him to hear the Syrian case, then formulate HMG’s objections, and state them? Pathetic. What’s the FCO coming to?
Don’t worry, Baal, he would have left a lowly First Secretary behind to take notes.
Do you know anything at all about how the UN, EU, etc function on the practical level?
Get up to speed before spouting.
Do you know anything at all about how the UN, EU, etc function on the practical level?
That requires research, so I’m certain you don’t.
Or experience.
You evidently have neither.
And you have? LOL.
I still cannot think through, exactly what it is that U.S.A./U.K. French/Israel hope to accomplish in Syria.
I can see that the Saudis and their Gulf state fellow travellers could be desperate to have pipelines going through Syria to the Med, or via Turkey to Europe, they would not want to put them through Israel but they could more simply put them through Egypt?
I can see that the states of the former Soviet Union, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, would greatly benefit by linked pipelines coming from The Caspian Sea and terminating in Lebanon /Syria, on the Med.
I can see that Turkey would be very upset to be overlooked.
I can see that NATO would prefer Russia, not to have a naval base in Tartus, Syria but it has been there for fifty years.
I would have thought that a more stable Syria would be more easy for Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Iraq, to deal/cope with.
So what is the real driver behind NATO destabilizing Syria?
The objective is to secure as much of the Middle East as possible, and to disadvantage, destabilise, overthrow or destroy any states that cooperate with Russia. Look at this map:
http://www.killick1.plus.com/map.jpg
Note that all the countries with US bases are rarely criticised in Western mainstream news, whereas the countries without US bases are usually depicted as evil, dangerous enemies.
Humanity won’t be able to support its population when the liquid fuel runs out; hydrocarbons are the most energy-dense power source based on chemical reactions (combustion) rather than nuclear, and as such they’re indispensable for mobile power. It’s not practical to run tractors, combine harvesters and aircraft on batteries.
But if the money spent on fighting were spent on developing appropriate infrastructure instead, hydrocarbons could be synthesized from captured atmospheric carbon combined, say, with hydrogen split from water, helping to solve hydrocarbon depletion, global warming and international conflict.
Nah. “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran (eventually)”. That’s the way to do it!
Clark
It is the Syrian and Iranians regimes that have been doimg their best to destabilise the Middle East over the past few decades.
You’ll have to do better than that habbs, Syria has been too busy trying to save itself from the situation it is in now and Iran has been fending of foreign interference and crippling sanctions. We both know which country benefits from the chaos and we both know which country has medically treated over 2,000 blood thirsty, drugged up head choppers. The very same regime has also been acting as Al Nusra’s air force. That was until the Syrians sent them home… Less one of it’s fighter jets. Thats quietened them down somewhat.
When you set out it out so clearly it is obvious that it is Syria and Iran who are to blame for the destabilization of the Middle East. I guess the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq arose as a consequence of Blair and Bush being Iranian and/or Syrian agents.
For those who don’t know which country benefits from the chaos and why, here’s which and why. Note the date.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm
To be noted that Baal Zevul refers us to the Wiki article on Richard Pearle’s “Clean Break” report but leaves it to the reader to find out for himself that the Israeli government, under PM Netanyahu, rejected that report.
Baal, you are as big a twister as Goss, Bev and the other obsessives .
@ Oblivious & Loony
You really must try harder.
@ Oblivious (you really are!)
I did say “for he past few decades”, didn’t I. In other words: long before the present war, which started around 2012 if memory serves.
Syria has been a politically unstable troublemaker and disrupter in the Middle East since independence and a dictatorial troublemaker and disrupter since the advent of the family firm of Assad & Sons in 1970 (or thereabouts). It was not even able to get its act together with President Nasser in the matter of the short-lived United Arab Republic, for Heaven’s sake 🙂
Iran too has been a force for destabilisation in the ME since well before UN nuclear sanctions were imposed.
@ Loony (great name!)
Yours was one of those silly-clever comments again: what has the second Gulf War got to do with the evident truth that Iran and Syria have been troublemakers in the ME for decades? Perhaps you are trying to say that Irak was also a destabilisiing, troublesome force for a while until dictator Saddam got his ass whupped?
Habbabkuk. In 1953 the US and the UK overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran and installed the fascist Shah. In 1979 the Iranian revolution overthrew the Shah and commenced a period of theocratic rule. This revolution provoked a hostile US response which ranged from ongoing diplomatic isolation of Ian through to US sponsorship of the Iran Iraq war (1980-1988)
The First Gulf War was in was in 1990. This was followed by a period of escalating sanctions which was followed by the 2nd Gulf War leading to the complete destruction of Iraq and ongoing regional chaos emanating from that destruction.
Throughout the entire period western powers have been funneling arms into the region and contributing to general insecurity.
1953 to date is a 63 year period and is entirely consistent with your chosen reference period of “the past few decades”
There is nothing “clever” and nothing “silly” in a simple recapitulation of history. – of which the principal referenced events are undisputed.
‘A Clean Break’ was commissioned by fucking Netanyahu. Whether he paid lip service (as usual) to more liberal policies at intervals thereafter, is wholly irrelevant. Then there was the PNAC project, linking US policy (and giving unrestricted Israeli access to the State Department) to Israel’s. Same story: let’s set the ME on fire, targeting Iraq, Syria and Iran.
Oh, and Libya….
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/02/2011227153626965756.html
You need a smoke alarm on those baggy keks, Habba.
TURKEY?
To understand the reasons for war on Syria, one must appreciate a confluence of objectives by the invading coalition of US, Israel, Uk, France ,Turkey and Gulf State monarchies and ISIS.
Israel is pursuing the Oded Yinon Plan to expand its territory and stands back while its Arab enemies ,exhaust each other in internecine wars. The destruction of Syria will cut the Shi’te crescent and supply line from Iran, via Iraq ,Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Gulf Monarchies of Saudi and Qatar,wish to run a gas pipeline via Syria thru to Europe.This undermines Russian, near monopoly of supply, and would damage Russia economically, which is in line with the US aims.
Turkey has the subjection of the Kurds and expansion to borders of the old Ottoman Empire as its objective.
NATO is the screen which give the US credibility in its hegemonic wars, NATO countries are US foreign policy puppets.
ISIS is a primitive Islamic cult, who have been promised their own Caliphate in the area straddling Iraq and Syria. The US has fostered and supplied ISIS. They use them as a mercenary proxy army to overthrow Assad, This tactic has been evident in Afghanistan,Libya,Kosovo,Chechnia etc.
As always the US has its plan for hegemony, Syria is just a chess move in this Greater plan. Central Asia is the pivot point of East to West trade. This is to be transited by the High Speed Rail System of the Chinese New Silk Road.This bypasses the US control of the sea routes by its Navy, making its redundant. It also bypasses the US dollar reserve currency hegemony, reducing the US to 2nd class Nation status.
To verify the above, read the Wolfowitz Doctrine
Zbigniew Brizinzki – The Grand Chessboard (plagiarised from Sir Halford Mackendries- Heartlands Theory)
Salford Lad, I don’t want to think you are right but I expect you are correct, how bloody awful, that the world has come to this
According to this link, ISIS flags are manufactured in Israel, and a bag of their production fell off the back of a truck there.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/09/26/george-soros-false-flag-factories.html
It appears that US sponsorship of ISIS ought probably to be read more specifically as sponsorship coming from the Israel lobby in the US as opposed to non-Israel US interests (if there is such a thing)
Perhaps we should just call IS JS and have done with it.
Michael,
This Counterpunch article of 15/9/2016 sheds some light on the real reason for the de-stabilisation of Syria:
Assad’s Death Warrant
.
Mattew Rycroft….ah, yes….of the infamous Downing Street Memo fame
Walkout was STAGED: British Ambassador (to UN) Peter Goodenham admits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZKPcefAqGY
1minute interview on SkyNEWS April 22nd 2009, Groundhog Day, again!
First US presidential head to head tonight. Sounds like a car crash waiting to happen. Will Hillary be well enough to show up? Will she have a seizure live on TV? Wouldn’t be surprised if it gets cancelled for some reason or other.
Many don’t think she can stay focused for 90 minutes whatever drugs they pump into her.
This brings new meaning to the phrase “swivel-eyed loon”
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/healthcare/297208-clintons-eyes-a-window-into-her-health-issues
More on her “eye problem”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCDbboP00pY
Of course you wouldn’t be one of the many?
Gilad Atzmon on the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/2016/9/25/yawnjews-are-furious-once-again
We noticed our trolls going into overdrive Gilad.
Jo Cox seat up for grabs
“Backlash after Tory leader tweets ‘no justification’ for not contesting Jo Cox seat”
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/714475/Simon-Cooke-tweets-Jo-Cox-backlash
“A BRADFORD councillor and leader of its Conservative party has caused outrage of tweeting their was “no justification” for his party to not challenge in the by-election triggered by the death of Jo Cox.”
It would be undemocratic for other parties to abandon the seat that was held by Jo Cox.
In a democratic country you cannot have only one party allowed to put up an idiot to be shoed in.
All main parties should field a candidate or the public are being treated like children.
It is for the voting public to decide, not back room unaccountables.
Nominations close later in the Witney by-election triggered by the resignation from Parliament of ex-Prime Minister David Cameron.
The election in the Oxfordshire constituency takes place on 20 October.
Barrister Robert Courts has been chosen as the Conservative candidate.
Those already declared as standing are Labour’s Duncan Enright, Liberal Democrat Liz Leffman, Larry Sanders for the Green Party and Winston McKenzie for the English Democrats.
Nominations are due to close at 16:00 BST.
Mr Cameron, who had represented Witney since 2001, quit the Commons earlier this month, saying he did not want his presence in the Commons to be a distraction for new PM Theresa May.
He held the seat for the Conservatives in the 2015 general election with a 25,155 majority.
from BBC
well on the same theme, why not say Dave Cameron was such an honourable man, that only the Conservative shoe-in idiot
should be allowed to stand in the former Prime minister’s seat?
So Dave Cameron’s old seat and Jo Cox’s old seat are both up for by-election on the same day, 20th October.
The Labour party are putting an idiot up for the seat of the late Jo Cox, why?
I apologize, I’ve no right to suggest Tracy Brabin is an idiot, I’ve just read she has an MA.
But why only short-list two women, are there no Labour men capable of being members of Parliament in Yorkshire,
this does seem like a shoe-in-stictch-up.
As Craig is currently in “The Land of the Free” it’s interesting to see that an arrest warrant has been issued against Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, for daring to report on the North Dakota pipeline protests.
Morton County authorities also issued arrest warrants last week for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and running mate Ajamu Baraka for criminal trespass and criminal mischief. Authorities filed charges after they were alerted to video that showed Stein painting “I approve this message” on the front of a bulldozer and Baraka painting the last word in the message “We need decolonization.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/12/amy-goodman-arrest-warrant-north-dakota-oil-pipeline-protest
“Morton County authorities also issued arrest warrants last week for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein…etc, etc..”
___________________
That’s what you get when you don’t have a Crown Prosecution Service as in the UK, you see.
http://www.darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/news/14760580.Spy_base_protestor_wins_battle_with_MOD_police/
CPS? —-em!
Quote: Lindis Percy, who has helped lead protests outside the largest US spy base outside America – RAF Menwith Hill, in North Yorkshire – almost every week for 16 years, said she had been angered when she was arrested and charged by Ministry of Defence (MoD) Police with breaching Dispersal Orders on March 8 and April 15. . .
she’s been arrested more than 500 times since VHS tapes were popular, the magistrate agreed that many of the arrests were ‘spurious’
There will come a time when just as sure America launches drone strikes against its other allies like Pakistan it will launch drone strikes against targets in Britain. Perhaps Habba offers favourable odds against that happening?
Or Anon…Is there a difference?
NATO continues to expand. Letter from the President — Report to the Congress Regarding the Accession of Montenegro to the North Atlantic Treaty (Sept. 22, 2016).
So all members of NATO are now obliged by treaty to go to war if anyone attacks Montenegro. Getting to look more and more like 1914.
Who’s going to attack Montenegro?
YKMN
The police arrests, the CPS charges. Your comment is irrelevant.
And having been arrested many hundreds of times by modplod, SB, Mi5, SDS, she has been charged many times by the cps, and she has just been discharged by Harrogate Magistrates. . .
I am irrelevant, Lindis has a hobby.
YKMN
” Lindis Percy, who has helped lead protests outside the largest US spy base outside America – RAF Menwith Hill, in North Yorkshire – almost every week for 16 years”
____________________
You seem to be well acquainted with her case and views and perhaps even with her personally.
That’s a lot of protesting we have here. Sixteen years – not an attempt to get justice for herself or a family member or friend, say, or to protest against manifest corruption at her local council, say, or attested police brutality,say, but just to express displeasure at the presence of a US intelligence facility. Some unkind souls (eg Anon!) would call her obsessional but hey, everyone to his or her own…..
But let us be kind and assume she’s not an obsessive. Based on your deep knowledge, would you say Mrs Whatever her name is is protesting against the listening station because it is American, or because it is on UK soil? If the former, then she wold presumably not against that listening station if it were British? And if the latter, she would presumably not mind if that listening station were to be based in a future independent Scotland?
That should get them more MSM coverage than they’ve had as and Vice-Presidential candidates.
According to this report, when the White Helmets first entered Syria, they killed and kidnapped those who manned the real Syrian Civil Defence force, if they didn’t join them.
The report also claims the White Helmets, stole fire engines and ambulances.
“They came in and they drove us out of our homes and they came to the Syria Civil Defence yard and they killed some of my comrades, they kidnapped others. They wanted to force me to work with them. I escaped at night. I was forced to leave my teenage sons behind. They burned my house to the ground and they put my name on all the terrorist checkpoints so if I go back, they will kill me.” ~ ‘Khaled’ (REAL Syria Civil Defense survivor, recounting 2012 terrorist takeover, Aleppo)”
The White Helmets receive close to £100 million dollars in aid from Nato countries, the German foreign office, stated on the 22nd of this month that they too will fund the White Helmets, to the tune of $7.6 milion dollars.
The ersatz actions of the White Helmets in Syria, in my opinion have been shown to favour, the NGO’s backers at every turn. Like the USA’s now destroyed “peace” brokering reputation. The White Helmets in my opinion have lost all credibility.
http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/09/24/syria-white-helmets-staged-russian-bombing-scene-near-aleppo-lapped-up-by-mainstream-media/
Jo Cox had links to the White Helmets and Save the Children and that’s why I believe she was a political plant to politicize both agencies, and why I doubt she was really murdered. Who knows, she could have written the piece about Aleppo Boy.
The White Helmets are a George Soros financed (among others) organisation. They appear whenever a propaganda stunt is required in rebel held East Aleppo.
Someone has put them up for the Nobel Peace Prize, to enhance their credibility. Head of the organisation is a British ex-mercenary by name Mesurier.
I see the BBC receiving propaganda reports from someone inside rebel held East Aleppo. I never hear gunfire,so I suspect he could be operating from a room above a kebab shop in Coventry, alongside the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
3rd party propaganda units are ideal for MI6 and CIA, Plausible denialibilty when lying.
The “IS” false flag attacks are staged to further a pro-war foreign policy in the Middle East, but if a “Muslim” had killed Jo Cox that would have boosted the Leave vote, so a “Nazi” had to be deployed instead and used against the Leave campaign.
With the cheating, lying, warmongering Yanks trying to blame Russia for what they continue to do in Syria the Russians have opened a western wound that refuses to heal – MH17. The Russians have presented their evidence to the public and are calling on Ukraine and the US (which claims to have evidence that Russia did it) to present any information like the air-traffic tapes from Ukraine and radar or satellite data evidence from the US.
https://www.rt.com/news/360634-mh17-ukraine-radar-data/
It looks like Syria is the last straw in the ‘Blame Russia’ stuck-needle of the west. They are asking for proof, evidence, the truth. The truth is alien to the neocon manipulators of western governments.
One of the standard techniques of Shushanka Street is to throw lots of diversionary accusations into the air when things get a little too hot – you know rigged elections, shooting up aid convoys etc.
I am looking forward to the claims that all the filming of your heroes handiwork in Aleppo by Panorama was all faked etc etc. blah, blah, blah etc.
Remember this young boy.
http://i.cbc.ca/1.3725995.1471515678!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/syria-boy.jpg
If you do then you’ll definitely want to watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=4oQTWn1JfeA
The White Helmets have been exposed again today by Francisco Nunes on twitter. The ‘reporter’ for the recent Syrian Red Crescent aid convoy attack (who was conveniently pictured in front of the burning wrecks wearing a white helmet) removed a picture of himself from his facebook page where he was shown with raised gun among a bunch of head choppers. This organisation should return the £19 million given to them by our government or better still we should be allowed to institute legal proceedings against Cameron for his negligence in giving money to these thugs. I don’t see why my taxes should finance child molesters and fantasists who have watched too many super hero films.
Oblivion.
Yes, I think we can safely say, that the White Helmets are not, what they portray themselves to be. But because they are seen as saviours, by most of the unassuming public, for now. Their funding will continue, don’t forget the White Helmets, have been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize, and in this current climate, I think they’ll be awarded the prize.
But to put that award into perspective, Kissinger and Obama, were also awarded the Peace prize, which raises far more questions, than answers.
I would say that we should look to China’s Confucious Peace prize award for ethics and morality, but China awarded the prize to Robert Mugabe last year, that says it all really. ?
China is no different from the west. They choose prize-winners who they hope it is in their best interests to choose. While not going in to bat on Mugabe’s behalf he does have a point about the Zimbabwe economy being adversely affected by thirteen years of sanctions imposed by . . . I give you three guesses.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-28025-US+extends+sanctions+Mugabe+still+%E2%80%98a+threat%E2%80%99/news.aspx
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-28025-US+extends+sanctions+Mugabe+still+%E2%80%98a+threat%E2%80%99/news.aspx
The UN Security Council met on Sunday, with the dis-United Kingdom the US and France, taking the firm position that a fourth member Russia, is backing terrorrism in Syria. Meanwhile the fifth member China has offered aid, support and training to the Assad government forces.
Earlier on just for good measure, United States Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, blamed Russia for the surge in violence in Syria.
One wonders if Sunday’s meeting was a clarion call, to Nato members to prepare, to up their game in Syria.
Not much they can do now except blow raspberries from the sidelines. Aleppo is about to be liberated and then the game will be up.
RoS (ELIE) wrote yesterday:
“Latin American nations accused the US of “neo-colonialism” at the UN General Assembly, with Venezuela going as far as calling Washington “the biggest exporter of violence in the world,”
____________________
I should have thought that Venezuela is doing such a good job of violence against its own citizens that it need scarcely mention the US.
My modest suggestion to “President” Nicolas Maduro Moros would be to ensure adequate supplies of toilet paper in Venezuelan shops rather than engaging in silly posturing at that supreme gabfest of idiocy aka the annual meeting of the UN general Assembly.
A typical piece of misrepresentation by Obama’s voice on the blog. These US orchestrated trade boycotts plus compradors in the streets with pots and pans, performing for Big Business media are all just part of the spectacle. Venezuela has problems of the oil dependency type exacerbated by the abuse of the latifundia who, having enclosed all the peasants’ land, have reduced the landless masses to getting the food they can no longer grow from supermarkets (owned by the latifundists)… its the class war. Venezuela has enormous wealth it just needs to be re-distributed in favour of those who created it and are the natural owners of the natural resources.
Yup, even shortages of bog rolls are capable of a Leninist interpretation. Perhaps especially a shortage of bog rolls 🙂
No, Bev, that really won’t wash. The cause of the sore bums in Venezuela is the economic mismanagement of an oil-rich, oil-exportng country by Hugo Chavez and the current Head Moron.
“..But why only short-list two women, are there no Labour men capable of being members of Parliament in Yorkshire..”
A short list of two is clearly ludicrous. It is just the latest in a series of attacks by the NEC of the Labour Party against the most fundamental democratic principles.
Before Mandelson introduced this classic Leninist strategy of reserving to the central party the right to choose candidates, for local parties to endorse the system was to give the local party full freedom to pick its candidate provided that the person selected was not proscribed. Before that the local party chose its candidate. Period. End of story.
Once again the Blairites are demonstrating that it is they, not the “Trots”, who are the entrists introducing the sort of ‘Democratic Centralism’ that Stalin refined. They removed from the membership the right to select Parliamentary candidates, they removed from the Conference the right to make policy and shape the platform and now, through the cynical use of identity politics (woman only panels and minority race only panels, with LGBT panels soon to come no doubt) the local parties now have the choice between a Blairite who used to play a working class woman on TV and one who sells her services as a consultant.
It is time that George Galloway threw his spare hat into the ring.
What the activists of Spen and Batley should do is not electioneer for the shoo-in, then when she’s unopposed and gets a few thousand votes it will be clear she did not get the majority of votes but the reluctance of them.
Not sure this would be a good seat for Galloway to oppose a popular actress and friend of Jo Cox at this time. I say let the right have another MP. If Galloway was to stand and lose it would do his credibility no more good than when he went on that unreality TV programme.
But yes, another seat in the future.
The United Kingdom has blocked European Union efforts, to launch an independent international inquiry, into Saudi Arabia’s war of aggression in Yemen.
Is it any wonder Westminster has taken that dishonest path? With over £3 billion of arms sales, going to the Kingdom. Boris the buffoon, rejected the need for a independent investigation, HRW, say that British arms sales, are central to the death and destruction, reeked up the civilian population of Yemen, by Britain’s great ally Saudi Arabia.
Isn’t it more than ironic, that, the dis-United Kingdom and through BoJo, spoke on Sunday at the UN, to discuss Russian/Syrian aggression. Yet when it comes to billion, of pounds worth of arms sales, to Saudi Arabia, in which thousands of Yemeni civilians are being slaughtered. The Foreign Secretary namely Boris Johnson, doesn’t want to know about it.
The stench of hypocrisy, emanating from Westminster, is overwhelming.
What is particularly disturbing about the disgraceful actions of HMG is that much of the Yemen was, for many years, a British Protectorate and those now being killed in the stupid and sadistic bombing raids include thousands who were deluded into believing that British rule was benign.
It is also noteworthy that among those Britain is stabbing in the back are the former supporters of the Imanate-now known as the Houthis- who fought Nasser, alongside SAS and British mercenaries, to prevent the establishment of a radical nationalist republic.
One day HMG is going to look around the world and realise, sadly, that there is nobody left to betray-every race and nation on the face of the world has a knife, supplied by Britain, sticking out of its back.
Thank you Bevin for your comment, you are correct, Yemen was part of the Ottoman empire, and then a British protectorate, I think it was unofficially called the Aden protectorate, or something to that effect.
As I said in a prior comment, in my opinion, Saudi Arabia, is attempting to subdue or destroy the Shia aspect of Yemen, which is proving far more difficult than the Saudis first thought, going by the length of time they’ve kept up the attacks. Mainly due to Iran’s support.
The off-shoot of the conflict is that British arms companies, and their, friendly political allies, are cashing in on Saudi arms contracts.
Does the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have any special responsibility towards its former colonies, all of whom have been independent for decades and are entirely responsible for the policies, both domestic and external, they espouse?
“Does the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have any special responsibility towards its former colonies”
______
Habb.
Would it really matter if it did? Afterall Rwanda a Commonwealth country, could’ve done with British intervention circa 1994, don’t you agree?
“Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the genocide, last week declassified diplomatic cables were released by the National Security Archive at George Washington University which showed that the US, Britain and the United Nations were explicitly warned that a “new bloodbath” was imminent in Rwanda.”
“Rather than increasing the power of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (Unamir), the governments of John Major in Britain and President Clinton in the US were considering rowing back the peacekeeping effort, according to the cables.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/britain-ignored-genocide-threat-in-rwanda-9179109.html
One could say Westminster, only intervenes, when the term are favourable.
The UK has a special responsibility in international law not to take part in unprovoked attacks on any other sovereign nation. It has a responsibility not to supply bombs, targeting experts and technical assistance to countries engaged in terror bombing of civilian targets.
It has a moral responsibility (you can google ‘morality’, Habb) not to profit from war crimes.
As a matter of taste it is generally agreed that nations do not turn against former comrades in arms-which is what the formerly APL portions of the Yemen army are- and join with al qaeda terrorists to murder them and their families.
Hey Habba, riddle me this:
Three J-wish mothers were conversing round the coffee table and boasting about their wonderful sons.
The first one told how her son Marvin was so thoughtful and considerate to her and always brought flowers when he came to visit. The second one told how her lovely boy Jacob would take her to dinners regularly at an expensive restaurant.
The third one, with great pride, told the others that was nothing!! “My boy Sheldon,” she said, “He’s been going to this expensive analyst, the best one in the city, twice a week for the last ten years. Costs a hundred dollars a visit, and you know what? ALL he ever talks about is ME!!!
Ba-Boom!
Why don’t you piss off Alan. Even Momentum would find that crap inappropriate.
Aden was a crown colony, a vital link in the Suez route to the east. The various amirates of south Yemen, including the Hadramhaut on the Persian Gulf, were protectorates. There is an excellent book “The View from Steamer Point” a memoir by a former governor if you want to get a flavour of life there. For the pbi-more likely RAF, because Aden was a big RAF base, it was as hot as hell, beer was hard to come by and it made Blighty look, for the National Service bod, like an earthly paradise.
I believe Britain, through India, first took over Aden about 1837-ish when a shipwrecked crew went missing in Lahej, the amirate on the southwestern tip.
Hey Bevin, donchaknow Aden has “Little Ben”. Built during the colonial period, this was restored in 2012 after 3 decades of neglect since the British withdrawal of 1967 which kinds shows that if things don’t change they remain as they always were.
You of course forget that after we left Aden it became a Soviet Protectorate the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen with a constitution based upon that of East Germany ( I kid you not). Of course that colonial power is above reproach in Bevin’s book – but I believe the locals as in Afghanistan didn’t find that colonial power to their taste either.
Carry on rewriting history
Does anyone (real) remember these lyrics?
“September ’77 – Port Elizabeth, weather fine,
it was business as usual in police-room 619”
I saw this performed in Nyon, with Youssou N’Dour. Awesome.
(a good perf is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTlzamUlQkg )
It has come to my attention that he’s at it again! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqFKjz4l9u0 “The Veil”
I can’t yet be sure if I’ll remember the lyrics thirty years later – but who knows?
From today’s Irish Times: Why Jeremy Corbyn will be Britain’s next Prime Minister.
http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/roger-cole-why-jeremy-corbyn-will-be-the-uk-s-next-prime-minister-1.2805701
The bookies have had Corbyn as favourite to become the next PM for some time now…
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-prime-minister
If it’s going to happen I don’t think it’ll be in 2020. I’d put my money on either November/December of this year, or early next year.
But of course we don’t yet know what’s going to happen on the other side of the Pond…
As that list doesn’t include Teresa May but does include David Cameron (who resigned as PM two months ago and from politics altogether on the 12th of this month) I suspect it may be out of date.
Under the fixed term parliament act there can only be an election before 2020 if the Government loses a vote of no confidence or parliament votes to dissolve itself by a two thirds majority. Neither is likely to happen before the end of the year.
It’s out of date in one sense, in that I haven’t seen any bookie’s odds since Corbyn was re-elected leader of the Labour Party on Saturday.
Here’s Ladbrokes for example (that always cracks me up: Lad-Broke)…
‘Next Prime Minister To succeed Theresa May’…
https://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/betting/politics/british/next-prime-minister/next-prime-minister/222322969/
… which has Corbyn as the firm favourite.
The fixed term Parliament Act is all smoke and mirrors (a majority vote in the House of Commons can overturn it).
Republican nominee Donald Trump pledged to recognize Jerusalem as the “undivided capital” of Israel if elected president as he met with Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, while Hillary Clinton told the Israeli PM she would oppose BDS and UN meddling.
Well there you have it, the American public will pay through the nose, no matter which one wins, both will genuflect, to whims of Israel.
Trump met Bibi, behind closed doors, no doubt to cement their relationship, Netanyahu now has money on both horses, in a two-horse race. The powerful lobbies and politicians who virtually control the corridors of Washington, have Israel’s interests at heart.
NATO continues to expand. Letter from the President — Report to the Congress Regarding the Accession of Montenegro to the North Atlantic Treaty (Sept. 22, 2016).
So all members of NATO are now obliged by treaty to go to war if anyone attacks Montenegro. Getting to look more and more like 1914.
Who’s going to attack Montenegro?
NATO is intended as a mutual defense organization. It is not some form of country club.
Therefore if Montenegro does not have reason to suppose that someone is likely to attack it then it has no need to join NATO. Existing NATO countries should only admit Montenegro if they are prepared to declare war on any entity that may attack Montenegro. Thus for example the British must be satisfied that any attack on Montenegro represents a direct threat to UK national security.
As Montenegro did not exist until recent years it is difficult to see how the British have reached this conclusion – but they must have reached it in order for them to be prepared to admit Montenegro.
Alternatively NATO has morphed into an arm of US empire and all other NATO members are lackeys and vassals who simply obey US orders.
” Existing NATO countries should only admit Montenegro if they are prepared to declare war on any entity that may attack Montenegro. Thus for example the British must be satisfied that any attack on Montenegro represents a direct threat to UK national security.”
________________________
The second sentence is a complete non-sequitur.
Did you look up non sequitur in a dictionary and become desperate to use it in a sentence?
Look at the conditions surrounding the creation of NATO and look at the original members of NATO. You will find that NATO was predicated on a fear of Soviet aggression and that all original members believed (reasonably) that if the USSR attacked one state then they would probably attack more than one state. Even if a soviet assault was limited to one member state then the “loss” of that member state would have impinged on the national security of all other states.
It therefore remains the case that, if NATO is today anything other than a vehicle for US imperialism, the British must have satisfied themselves that an attack on Montenegro would represent a direct threat to the national security of the UK.
NATO is the screen behind which Washington can justify its Hegemonic wars. NATO members are just puppets of US foreign policy. European politicians have been bribed or coerced into line to go along with these policies.
I can find no other reasons for a NATO organisation,since the demise of the Soviet Union and the disbandment of the Warsaw Pact forces in 1991.
NATO is the screen behind which Washington can justify its Hegemonic wars. NATO members are just puppets of US foreign policy. European politicians have been bribed or coerced into line to go along with these policies.
I can find no other reasons for a NATO organisation,since the demise of the Soviet Union and the disbandment of the Warsaw Pact forces in 1991.
A Montenegrin caught in Germany with a car full of weapons a week before November’s Islamist attacks in Paris confessed at the start of his trial on Friday to acting as a gun runner, but denied knowing what was planned with the arsenal.
The man in his early 50s, named by prosecutors only as Vlatko V., was stopped by police on Nov. 5 on the motorway between Salzburg and Munich. His navigation system showed he had come from Montenegro via Croatia and Slovenia, and was heading to an address in Paris.
Police found an arsenal of weapons hidden in his Volkswagen Golf, including eight Kalashnikov assault rifles, pistols, hand grenades, explosives and detonators.
http://www.france24.com/en/20160923-montenegrin-arms-smuggling-paris-november-attacks-germany
The Israeli military has indicted at least 145 Palestinians so far this year,after accusing them of inciting anti-Israeli sentiments over social media.
I’m sure Habby boy would love to see such brutal enforcement take hold in the dis-United Kingdom.
Israel has launched a violent campaign to stamp out the online calls, for resistance by Palestinian activists and groups.
Tel Aviv threatens those Palestinians, who do not appear for interrogation with arresting their family members instead. The regime had arrested about 400 Palestinians since October 2015, for social media posts that highlight the atrocities, and crimes committed by the regime and illegal settlers.
Poor old Habb, he must be salivating, like Pavlov’s dog at the future prospect, of this kind of clamp down, on social media in the dis-United Kingdom.
Don’t give the Bliarites ideas!
On 538, Hillary’s chances of winning have dropped to 51.8%.
I know Habba & Co will be awfully disapointed if they missed John McDonnell’s speech during today’s Labour Party conference, so here it is in full…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJcUNU_M770
If I were a tax-avoiding, war-mongering, fascist psychopath I’d be kinda worried.